Session 17: The Hidden Shrine

General Summary

After a brief discussion, the Dragon’s Bane started their trek through the mountains towards White Plume Mountain. After a few hours had passed, Kethra suddenly stopped and froze in place. After a few moments she came to her senses again, and unfortunately had some bad news. The health of her parents in Waterdeep had taken a turn for the worse, and the brave cleric help was needed. She apologized and gave everyone some goodies. After that, she said goodbye and vanished using a mysterious stone. Damian, Thorbjörn and Shava continued their journey. Soon, Damian noticed suspicious activity in the distance. Someone or something was definitely moving there. Everyone halted while Damian sent Snickers, his bat familiar to scout ahead and get more information. This helped to confirm that the activity involved two humanoids clearly arguing over something. The party decided to move closer cautiously. While approaching, the group witnessed the conflict escalate and weapons were drawn between the two participants – a big and scary half-ogre and a rich-looking elven warrior in beautiful heavy armor. Unsure about whose side to take, the heroes launched a few projectiles in the general direction of the duel, without hitting anyone. This left the fate of the battle to be decided among the two strangers, and eventually the half-ogre turned out to be on the losing side. The elven paladin introduced himself as Ronorin. As it happened, he was also investigating the theft of the three legendary weapons and his family had close ties with Farlien Stormwolf, Baron Althon’s friend in Luskan. Ronorin was heading towards Stone Tooth in search of clues, but the Dragon’s Bane convinced him that they had already cleared this area, and that White Plume Mountain was the right place to start. So the paladin joined up with the group and the four adventurers continued their travel. Soon after, night approached so Shava found a nice cave to set up camp and everyone could get more acquainted around the fire.

21 Flamerule, 1393 DR (Day 22)

The next day, the difficult trek through the mountains continued. Around noon, the party found something curious on their way – an overgrown patch of thick forest full of trees and vines on their path. Ronorin’s senses told him that the plants were clearly magical, so the group entered and investigated carefully. While traversing the narrow path through the trees, the heroes found some huge and old chunks of stone, overgrown with vines. After the path opened up to a clearing, more crumbled rocks and debris was found, clearly remains of some sort of structures. Several also had runes carved on them, but nobody could understand their possible meaning. To top it off, suddenly the earth began to shake and was overcome with tremors. The heroes felt the ground disappear from under them and fell below, with daylight vanishing from their eyes... After a while, the heroes found themselves inside a sealed room, one half blocked off by the debris that fell in with them. What immediately caught their eyes were strange dioramas with intricate small figurines lining the walls. These depicted various scenes from the everyday life of some sort of tribespeople – catching fish, crafting clothes and household items, worshipping gods etc. There were also figurines of warriors battling each other and hunting wild animals. Also, one of such art pieces was inside a half-dome in the center of the room. There seemed to be a single exit in the form of a door, but no obvious way to open it. Everyone did their best to investigate the dioramas and the door, but to no avail.

Finally, Ronorin decided to take the figurines from the central dome, and form them into an art piece of his own – placing them on the edge in front of the dome. Soon after, all of the figurines animated and the room was suddenly filled with tribal warriors and a fearsome panther, all seemingly a bit confused and eager to attack the heroes. Since no common ground could be achieved through other means of communication, this meant a fight to the death. The group had some difficulties, but managed to overcome the savages in the end. Now, everyone took a few moments to rest and figure out how to get out of there.

Campaign

Tales from the Yawning Portal

Protagonists